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Over the last 20 years, the Tripura Government has been pushing New Delhi to open up trade and rail lines with Bangladesh but talks have remained talks; a waste of breath and words.

STONE pillar 2166. It marks the zero point at the international border between India and Bangladesh at Baspadua in Belonia, south Tripura district. A barbed wire fence is being built. At 9.45 a.m., under a bright sun we walked across into Bangladesh without a passport and visa. The area is called Uttar Ghutuma, in Feni district, Bangladesh. Walking past a nursery planted with Belgium trees (for its softwood), we hailed Mohammad Asanulla, a Bangladeshi farmer, moving across his farmstead followed by his father Amanulla.

Seeing us in Bangladesh territory, a few kids and a woman standing around, move away. "Aapnara ke (Who are you)," asked Amanulla in Bengali and we told him we were "patrakars from India (journalists)". "Likhe korben ki (What will you do by writing)," asked Amanulla and we passed the pertinent query.

Cross-border movement is routine, marriages ignoring the geographical landscape defined by maps are quite common and friendships still hold true between the two peoples. One night we (Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury and this writer) stayed in a Government guesthouse at the edge of Bilonia in Bilonia sub-division, south Tripura.

A BSF border post is located opposite the spacious Government home with its jackfruit, mango and coconut trees. BSF patrols were guarding the place with the Muhuri river and Muhuri char (wasteland) setting apart the two countries. In the evening, we walked down the main road of this nowhere town, mumbling tales of occasional scuffles and exchange of gunshots between the BSF and Bangladesh Rifles. It has to happen as no soldier can stay still with a gun in hand. Sometimes the intense boredom of doing nothing but the drill and fixing eyes at empty borders can get anyone to spray the bullets.

Early morning, we saw the river flowing quietly, with a soldier of Bangladesh Rifles roaming around on the other side. We strolled a short while into the disputed territory or wasteland.

At one time, the wasteland fed by the Muhuri river grew vegetables and sugarcane but that is over. "It is a sensitive spot with both countries claiming Muhuri Char," a shop owner told us. On the first day (Sunday evening) in Tripura we made it by car to Kamalasagar with the Indian claim ending at Pillar 2039.

In Tripura, day starts at 5 and ends by 5. A few hundred yards away is Kasba in Bangladesh and one saw in the darkness the headlight of a train marking a trail in the air as it made its way to the station, halted a few minutes before departing with a loud hoot.

Trains run between Pakistan and India; why not between India and Bangladesh. It could help open markets and business options can wear out the habit of political dislike. It is confirmed by a morning visit to the Akhaura border with Bangladesh, a few minutes run down the Akhaura-Agartala road.

At about 7 a.m., tempos loaded with fish drive in to Akhaura from Bangladesh, deposit their wares and turn away. Business is brisk and loud with duty-free dry fish being sold at $2 per kg for the famed Hilsa and 60 cents per kg for small fish. All other items imported into India carry an import duty ranging between 15 per cent and 30 per cent, a customs official told us. Watching the scene, which resembled the fish market in Sassoon Docks in Mumbai, Arunangsu murmured in Bengali, "Kono lodai nai, kitchu nai (No fight, nothing)."

Over the last 20 years, the Tripura Government has been pushing New Delhi to open up trade and rail lines with Bangladesh but talks have remained talks; a waste of breath and words. The lines of Marathi poetess Amita Kokate came to mind: "Like the texture/Of the canvas/Is our relation/Though the weaves/Are tightly interlaced, criss-cross/It hurts/Our fingers."

The Jet Airways flight from Kolkata to Agartala is about 30 minutes as one flies over Bangladesh at a height of 25,000 ft; that is the lone viable link as the alternative by road going round to Guwahati and then on to Agartala can take more than 20 hours. Most do not even try it out. Sometimes one felt the State has been abandoned by all.

At least for bankers the State and its majority farming community do not exist. In a chat, Dr G.S.G. Ayyangar, Secretary, Agriculture and Rural Development, Tripura Government, revealed the credit-deposit ratio was just 23 per cent. Banks were not lending and rural bank branches are rare in Tripura.

The Government has taken up the issue with the RBI and by now has become a dead Government document. Most farmers get some grants from the Centre and the State with the rest brought in from outside sources. It is doubtful if the banking system has thought of routing funds to tribals practicing jhum in community-held land. Common rights on land, practiced over centuries, cannot easily be unwound. As for IT, there is little to show.

A visit to the Secretariat at Agartala reminds one of the run-down and damp Writers' Building in Kolkata. Fading brown files, leading their own lives, make their way across tables with the help of peons for bored and outdated babus to look at; not taking a decision makes better sense than taking one. And Tripura waits.

P. Devarajan

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